Photoshop is very powerful but sometimes simple tasks can get repetitive and tedious. Here's a look at how to automate just about anything in Photoshop using Photoshop actions.

The video above will walk you through the whole automation process, but here are the basic steps:

Go to the Window menu and choose Actions.

A little palette will pop up with Photoshop actions already predefined. To use any predefined action, just select it and press the play button at the bottom. If you want to make your own, click the menu button in the upper righthand corner and choose New Action.

Name your action, click OK, and then you'll automatically be in record mode. Anything you do in Photoshop will now be recorded, so perform any actions you want to automate and then click the stop button at the bottom of the actions palette.

You're done! Any time you want to reuse this action, just select it in the actions palette and press the play button.